Visible minorities on Quebec TV
I like that limited-time summer show Pour la suite des choses a lot. After interviewing Miss Chinese, Patrick Masbourian hosts a round table on the theme of visible minorities on Quebec TV, who are under-represented and hold stereotyped roles when they do happen to be shown. I don't know about that; I hardly watch any TV shows made in Quebec (last show I followed was probably during high school), and the only thing I do watch in French are the news, the food show on R-C, and RDS Canadiens hockey.
What is troubling is that from ads for these shows, there is indeed a disproportion of cultural communities in TV. Virginie, a long-running daily soap is 95% white French-Canadian (what school in Montreal is actually like this nowadays?). All the actors on TV are French. Etc, etc. I take note that there's Mao Bougon, played by an adopted Chinese girl (I think?), and a Vietnamese dude playing a gangster (I think who could've been from any background) in currently-running underworld series Casino, who take somewhat un-stereotyped roles (in appearance, cuz I haven't seen the shows).
As for Patrick Masbourian, he's Armenian of origin, grown up in a multi-cultural quarter of the city of Montreal. For some reason, I seem to think he's sort of like that CBC host George Stromboulopoulos. Had a "less serious" on La Fin du Monde est a Sept Heures (humoristic news show, a la 22 minutes, but better for Quebec-educated brains :D - and you tell me what more serious between MTV and CNN >_>) and is still hosting 4-day/week show La Revanche Des Nerdz, sort of fourre-tout on Canal Z, He's a veteran of the Course Destination-Monde, a really really cool Radio-Canada Television show/project I used to semi-follow when I was 10-ish, about young reporters going all around the world doing all sorts of very quirky topos on everyday life. I think that's where I saw that report on markets in Vietnam where they ate dog, haha, even *showing* how they would boil dogs alive - woaw, that was quite traumatizing, if I can remember it after fifteen years...
Least to say is that this week is teh very interesting. I have a craving for reading essays of all sorts (while I am almost due to return my video gaming volumes almost untouched), but it will likely fade out. Even if I don't sleep well, I surprise myself for having enough mental force left to be reading the Economist in the metro from and to work.
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